CHANGING AFRICA'S DEVELOPMENT PATH... WHO HAS THE ANSWER

One of Africa's top
business leaders, Nigerian
entrepreneur and philanthropist,
Tony O. Elumelu, caught the
development world's attention
recently by challenging their
strategies for Africa at the
African Development Bank's
(ADB) annual meeting in
Morocco.
It was there he declared that
charity and aid in Africa could
only go so far, and that African
entrepreneurs were the new
face of development.
What makes him so sure?
Elumelu rose to fame as the
youngest bank CEO in his home
country, when at the age of 34,
he turned a distressed Standard
Trust Bank into a top-five player
in Nigeria. He then led the largest
merger in the banking sector in
sub-Saharan Africa – outside of
South Africa – acquiring United
Bank for Africa (UBA). Within five
years he had transformed UBA
from a single-country bank to a
pan-African institution with over
7 million customers and 25,000
employees, in 19 African
countries as well as London,
Paris and New York.
And therein lies the answer.
Elumelu believes that UBA is
playing a critical role in Africa's
development by creating jobs
and skilled workers, by
facilitating trade and investment
across the continent, linking
national economies and
providing accessible financial
services to a vast number of
Africans. That, to him, is the new
face of development.
"In all honesty, we did not set out
to create social impact. We were
capitalists motivated by creating
shareholder value," says Elumelu.
“But then I saw the impact of
what we had done in building
this network of banks across
Africa. Our objective was to
create an African-led institution,
with a pan-African vision to
capture the enormous growth
potential of the continent and act
as a sort of ‘agent’ between
Africa and the world.”
Elumelu had foreseen the
opportunity for change in the
domestic industry, and
understood the regional and
continental dynamism taking
place. He said, “African
entrepreneurs were growing
businesses across the continent
and we knew they would
naturally want a banking partner.
We became that pioneering
African banking brand. Along the
way, we were empowering
people by providing jobs and
accessible financial services that
made them part of the economic
system in their countries. That
was when I realised it was
possible to 'do well' and 'do
good' at the same time. And
that's what we are doing at Heirs
Holdings."